Intellipedia
Joining the wiki bandwagon, the Director of National Intelligence recently established Intellipedia. The DNI was created in the wake of 9/11 to help break down barriers and increase information sharing across the disparate intelligence agencies.
Here is what the real Wikipedia has this to say about it:
Intellipedia was created to share information on some of the most difficult subjects facing U.S. intelligence and bring cutting-edge technology into its ever-more-youthful workforce. It also allows information to be assembled and reviewed by a wide variety of sources and agencies, to address concerns that pre-war intelligence that did not include robust dissenting opinions on Iraq’s alleged weapons programs. A number of projects are underway to explore the use of the Intellipedia for the creation of traditional Intelligence Community products.
In a Senate hearing a month ago, DNI Director McConnell evidenced a growing interest in adopting digital collaboration tools from the Internet for Intelligence use:
And analysts are also increasingly using interactive, classified blogs and wikis, much as the tech-savvy, collaboration-minded user would outside the Community. Intellipedia, the IC’s version of Wikipedia, and “A-Space” a common workspace environment likened in the press to the commercial website “MySpace,” are perhaps the best-known examples. Such tools enable experts from different disciplines to pool their knowledge, form virtual teams, and quickly make complete intelligence assessments. (PDF page 11)
Intellipedia would seem to be a good approach to some of the vexing challenges for the intell community: a new workforce, new threats, and a bureaucracy of secrecy and turf battles. Major structural change has been needed, and is in part underway, and this tool may be indicative of some of the new thinking. As one conservative commentator who apltly stated, “reforms instigated by independent reviews and implemented either by executive order or by congressional legislation need to be aimed at transforming the intelligence community from failed top-down institutions based on obsolete business models of the 1950s to the nimble, bottom-up, flat, and networked organizations that thrive in the age of information technology revolution.”
Contrary to Sunstein’s concerns that the Internet can cause a loss of shared experiences and common space, Intellipedia seeks to stimulate knowledge and experience sharing, debate and communication. Rather than push people away and into isolated communities, Intellipedia is intended to pull them together.
If numbers are a metric, a The New York Times article from a few weeks ago would indicate that the project is a success: “Sixteen months after its creation, officials say, the top-secret version of Intellipedia has 29,255 articles, with an average of 114 new articles and more than 4,800 edits to articles added each workday.” According to USA Today, Intellipedia was used as the platform for developing a new National Intelligence Estimate on Nigeria.
But of course, there are a number of potential pitfalls and problems that Intellipedia can face. Getting all agencies and individuals to contribute and ‘buy in’ is important to it becoming effective at information sharing. It must be open for agencies and individuals to access and use it, but is secrets and information must be secure and confidential. Will contributing and reading it be seen as an added work burden, or will it be seen as a benefit? Perhaps it is too soon to draw any conclusions.